


Reflection

by MistressPaint



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Alternate Universe - No Sburb/Sgrub Sessions, Humanstuck, M/M, Some sort of future war-based thing plus a trippy mirrored Skaia I don't know, probably?
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-04
Updated: 2016-05-04
Packaged: 2018-06-06 07:34:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,406
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6745162
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MistressPaint/pseuds/MistressPaint
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Trapped between a future where pleasant memories are all the pleasure left in life, and a dream where the sky and land have switched places atop a giant chess board, Dave Strider's life is anything but straightforward.</p>
<p>Because no matter what you do, when you're straddling two worlds, you eventually have to wake up.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Reflection

  _It’s a world where everything is backwards. The ground is flying across a sky filled with waves that lap at the sun, the clouds cool your feet on a hot summer day, flowers tower in the sky and floating buds live in ankle-high trees. It reflects the other world in a strange, fairy tale way projected onto a living chess board._

_But when you’re stuck between selves, no matter how much you prefer one to the other, you eventually have to wake up._

* * *

He wakes slowly, eyes sticky and a barely forgotten name rising to his lips.

The dim, watery light of day filters in through the window that dominates most of one wall – more a testament to the size of the wall, than window. The tiny space has room for a bed, sheets rumpled and so old and washed they’ve turned from bright red to a nondescript beige; nightstand, filled with bottles of pills, odds and ends, and a pair of aviators he knows used to mean something; a closet of dull colors and neutral tones, long sleeves and black shoes, clothes meant to hide oneself from the world; and two doors.

He stumbles through the first, barely avoiding slamming his knees into the sink, and steps directly into the tiny shower box before twisting the knob. The water is lukewarm, as always, hot showers a fond memory. Somehow he makes it through his morning routine.

He stands in front of the second door. Beyond it, he’s a part of society. A well-worn cog in the grand machine, driving them all to victory.

Outside his window the dull gray rain continues to pour down.

He’s almost certain he’s forgetting about something important.

* * *

The fields of feathers sway and ripple, brushing tantalizingly against his bare calves. He wades through them, the soft down of their bases cushioning his feet, as he searches for the Mayor. Well, that’s what Dave has taken to calling the small black piece that’s taken a liking to him, anyway.

A rustle from behind makes him whirl, but a grin soon replaces wariness at the sight of the little form wrapped in a sheet attempting to sneak up on him. Once the Mayor realizes the jig is up, it straightens – Dave fancies he sees a bit of a pout – and tugs insistently, pointing towards a crest in the field a little ways away.

“Over there? Alright, little man, let’s go.”

The two of them weave through clusters of plumes all sizes, from dull browns no higher than his ankles to purple-tipped vibrant green ones taller than him. Around that crest, however, was something that made his jaw drop.

A patch of inky black feathers, iridescent colors rolling across their vanes as the light reflected off the bright morning sea plays along them. Dave reaches down and plucks one, holding it up by the shaft and inspecting it. “It’s the real deal, alright – awesome job.” The Mayor claps happily and busily sets about plucking.

Once they have a good haul, Dave stops the little black carapace. “Don’t take them all – we want more later right? Well, assuming they reproduce like normal. Or spread. Fuck, I don’t even know. Whatever. Anyway! Take a look at these.”

From his pocket he draws a small pile of rain stones, grinning at the confused look on the Mayor’s little face. He sits in the clearing they’ve just created, carefully setting down the mass of feathers and all but one of the stones.

He clears his throat and draws a deep breath. Hopefully this one won’t shatter in his hand. Pursing his lips, he whistles a pure, clear note, midrange and pleasant. The stone shivers slightly in his hand – not quite. He raises the pitch slightly, stepping up the scale as it begins to hum in response. Just as he’s reaching the top of the range where he can easily hold the note, the stones suddenly softens in his hand.

He moves quickly – his lung capacity seems a lot larger than it should be, but it isn’t infinite. He scoops up stone after stone, pressing them into each other and kneading the mass together. Once the pile is depleted, he grabs the lump with both hands and begins to pull it apart, into a long roped, twisting the strand and doubling it back over on itself before repeating the process. Shifting, he cups one end in his left hand and begins to work the other end with his right. He pinches it between the sides of two fingers, smoothing it down into a sloping expanse, continuing to stroke the material into the correct shape.

When his lungs feel ready to burst, he shapes the edges between thumb and forefinger, then releases the note with a gasp.

The Mayor jumps up and down, clapping excitedly at the show. Dave, still breathing hard, examines his work.

The knife is beautiful, pale blue translucent stone twisted into sharp blades tapering to a point. Tiny bubbles are trapped beneath the surface, and when he flicks the stone, it hums his note back at him.

Nodding, he sets about slicing the bases of the crow feathers into strips and showing the Mayor how to weave them together into fans, crowns, discs, and more. The three of them spend what seems like ages playing with the– wait, who was the third? There was someone there, who was it, no, don’t wake up –

* * *

“Tell me about these dreams.”

Somewhere in the back of his head, Dave realizes that it’s a new shrink again. What happened to the last one? Was he fired? Did Boss request the switch? Did he declare Dave ‘untreatable’ and jump ship?

Or, wait – was it a woman? Was she giving birth? Was she visiting family during the last air raid? They’ve all blurred together, blended into a uniform paste by the dull grayness of life.

“Mister Strider?”

He forces his lips to move. Somehow sounds come out. “Sorry. I was distracted.” Are the dreams the distraction from real life? Or is it that other world that’s real, and this is some bizarre limbo pulling him away from it? “I haven’t been sleeping much.”

The scratching of pencil against paper grinds to a halt, and Dave can feel the shrink’s eyes on him, though he keeps his own fixed on tracing the rivulets of water running down the window. The inside of the pane is fogged up, but he can’t feel his own body enough to know whether it’s warm inside.

“Dave, you’re here because you’ve missed work three times in the last two weeks and spent over half the time you’ve actually been in the office either asleep on your desk or staring off into space. And just the other day, you failed to take proper shelter during a bomb raid and were later found by authorities asleep in the elevator, which…”

He doesn’t remember any of this. Or does he?

* * *

He’s floating in the middle of a thunderhead, lightning arcs lurking around him, far enough not to fry but close enough to threaten. He blinks, disoriented. “Shit!” How did he get this far out? He was just making feather crowns with the carapaces – no, he was dreaming of gray and rain and a blurred mind – no, wait, what?

He claws his way up and out, grasping at the swirling mass of air to pull himself up. Finally he breaks through the top, the rain-laden cloud holding him up so well he barely has to tread.

The clouds beneath him have gathered and thickened this far from the chess-marked land, bulging upwards toward the sea in the sky, so close he feels like he can almost touch it. But when he reaches out to try, his questing fingers fall short of the liquid. The flashes of bright midday sun winking off the crests almost seem like they’re laughing at him.

Squinting his eyes against those blinding flashes, Dave pulls himself as far out as he can, keeping his body curled in tight. He reaches forward, grabs at the cloud, ducks his head, breathes deep – one, two three – yanks his body forward, and suddenly he’s shooting out the side of the thunderhead dome. His launch sends him just far enough to break free, stretch out limbs, and now he’s sliding down the dense cloud on his ass. The wind is whipping past his face like a hurricane.

Eventually he reaches the edge of the storm cloud and expects to sink – but no, he’s gained so much momentum that he’s skipping across the surface, curling in once again, riding it out until suddenly he’s lost enough speed that he plows into the bank of clouds in an explosion of fluff.

Dave carefully pushes himself up, wincing slightly, and finds his footing. Thin cirrus strands clutch at his ankles as he staggers forward out of the mess, knees dropping down to the glassy shore as he drags air into his lungs.

From above he hears a fluting voice, feels small shadows dapple his skin, and glances up. A group of bluegrass sparrows with their chicks, encouraging the young ones to fly. The tiny bundles of green aren’t yet old enough to have full control, and they dip and sway through the air. Their mothers trill, either worried or encouraging, and swoop around the edges of the group. Stray blades drift down, and Dave automatically reaches out to catch a few. Green stains his palms where the broken ends of the stalks touch his skin.

The flock moves away, and in their absence the blooms begin emerging from their hiding places to float along invisible currents of air. A few drift towards him, petals fluttering delicately as they land on his palm. Each one’s pistil unfurls delicately as their stamens reach greedily for the green juices, tickling his skin and leaving coated with a light dusting of golden pollen.

Suddenly they freeze in place, alerted by some signal he isn’t attuned to. Then they scatter, and underneath the rush of petals he thinks he hears something – a voice?

“Dave!”

He knows that voice.

He knows that voice’s owner, has heard it shouting in anger, cracking in husky laughter, whispering into his ear as they lie wrapped around one another in a clearing of soft down in the middle of a sunflower and rose forest, wisps of clouds clinging to their skins with dandelion seeds floating far overhead as they-

* * *

 

“I’ll pay for him, too.”

Did he say that?

Apparently.

As the cashier struggles to add the other order onto Dave’s on the ancient register, he mentally backtracks. Register, offer, yelling, coffee, rain… Too far. Yelling. That’s right, the guy forgot his wallet. He winces – no one should have to go without coffee. It’s the only thing worth living for most days, keeping everyone from falling into an eternal sleep from the unending patter of rain. Maybe Dave should offer to pay-

Wait, he already did. Suddenly everything makes sense.

By this time the cashier has succeeded, a faint look of triumph on his face – though everyone knows it won’t last – and they are shuffled out of the way, towards the pickup area. They stand there, silent: small talk hasn’t been much of a thing since the skies started some faction poisoned the skies and they started weeping day in and day out.

Dave’s number is called and he steps forward, mechanically reaching out to take the slightly smoking gray cup from its position on the counter. There’s another one next to it? Well, whatever. He grabs the one marked for a triple type-7 stimulant boost and lifts it to his lips. He takes a healthy gulp, swallows, and waits for it to hit him.

Long gone are the days of names written on colorful cups, artisan beans with whipped cream and flavored syrups, cheery doorbells and sun-drenched cafes full of cheerful 20-somethings, excited for the world.

The pseudo-caffeine rushes to his head within minutes. A+ job for whoever made it. Then again, it was probably their fault he needed it. He breathes a sigh of relief as the fog that’s been blurring his mind recedes, bringing the world into sharper focus and sending the dreams – _but are they really?_ – to the back corner of his mind.

As he drinks, a voice beside him says, “Triple seven? I’m only at a double four. You shouldn’t spend so much time asleep.”

Dave freezes, heart missing more than a few beats. Throat twisted up in a knot, he slowly pivots, staring.

It’s him.

He’s so, so, pale, like everyone has become, somewhere in that indeterminate age between 25 and 50 that the whole population seems stuck in. His hair is flat and limp, cut shorter, and there’s a defensive hunch to his shoulders Dave doesn’t remember, but oh god it’s Karkat, Karkat exists, either Dave isn’t crazy or he’s just truly gone off the deep end-

He steps forward, presses a square of grubby card stock into Dave’s hand, and then he’s gone, door swinging shut behind him, out into the blinding expanse of the downpour.

Dave slowly sinks down into the nearest chair, coffee forgotten. The world fades out, leaving only himself, a tinny newscast announcing the most recent city to get wiped off the face of the earth, and a feeling like reality has tilted on its axis.

* * *

 

“Why haven’t you called me?”

They’re in that same meadow again, watching bamboo cranes plucking the dandelion spores from where they swim through the air. Dave raises his arm, flexing his fingers to mimic a spore’s cottony head moving in the breeze.

With a sigh, he drops his arm back down against Karkat’s chest. “I don’t know. It’s just- I still feel like I’m going to wake up one day, truly wake up, and you and everything I knew in this place will be gone.”

Karkat props himself up on his elbow, concern in his eyes under furrowed brows. “What? But you should have connected, now – you still think you’re dreaming?”

It had gotten better, it’s true. Dave didn’t sleep through work as much, hadn’t had to go to the shrink as often. He’d even managed to cut back, if only slightly, on his coffee intake. His mind wasn’t such a blurry mess of two worlds. And yet…

He rolls onto his side, coming face to face with a tiny dogwood in full bloom. “I spent a long time thinking I was crazy, okay? Batshit insane. It still doesn’t feel… real, I guess. I’m scared that I’ll lose it all”

Dave breaks off a branch and rolls back, rolling the twig between his fingers, using the silence to watch Karkat as that tidbit is digested.

He was right, that morning he bought their coffee. This Karkat is darker, skin blessed with a healthy tan. He was more confident, hair longer and with more body. The other one was a washed out version.

He shrugs self-consciously under Dave’s gaze. “I wasn’t entirely sure you existed, either. You were tucked away all the way back here, so strange… but so, I don’t know, perfect?” Dave cracks a smile as he flounders. “But I knew this place was real, that much was certain.”

At that, Dave frowns. “How? Up until recently, I could barely tell when I was awake versus dreaming.”

“The others told me, of course.”

Dave jolted up, staring at him. “Others? What?”

Karkat sighs. “I don’t know exactly what the fucking deal is here, okay? When you were still just randomly appearing like a ghost here, I got kind of creeped out and started wandering. The chess pieces pointed me towards another area, where I found… others. Sort of like us. But they seemed to actually live here, not just visit, y’know?”

Slowly, Dave sinks back down. Karkat continues, “They avoid this area for some reason. That’s probably why you haven’t seen them. Hell, they even told me I shouldn’t stay here for too long.”

“Why not?” Dave finally finds his voice.

“Something about it not lasting much longer.”

“Then why are you still here?”

Another shrug, eyes averted and face tinged red. “Because I like being with you more, asshole.”

Dave grins, flicking away the tiny flowered branch before launching himself at Karkat, wrapping his arms around the other man’s torso.

“Glad to hear that,” he breathes, then lowers his head to press their lips together once more, humming as Karkat tangles his fingers in Dave’s pale hair.

* * *

His fingers shake as he punches the numbers into his phone, numbers he’s had memorized for ages, numbers he’s never used, numbers that came from a grubby paper pressed into his numb hands in the middle of a coffee place in the pouring rain. He’s never been a religious man, but now all he can do is pray that some miracle has kept the phone tower standing, that Karkat hasn’t been hit yet, that the next wave will hold off long enough-

The electronic message cuts off, replaced by a frantic voice shouting his name in his ear, distorted across the speakers and through the fuzz of explosions but still recognizable. His voice catches.

“Karkat, I’m so sorry, oh god, what are we going to do-“

He cuts Dave off, voice trembling. “I know, I’m sorry too, I wish we could have- I should’ve chased you down, not just given you my number and run.”

Dave huddles down in the measly protection of his shower box, flinching every time the earth shakes from a stray bomb dropping, a gas main exploding, a building collapsing… overheard the deadly humming of the skycraft blots out the sound of the rain, that damned rain he never thought he’d wish he could hear.

When he speaks again, his voice is raw and trembling, punctuated with hiccups and the occasional sob. “You… you heard them too, right? First it was the Council building, that was one. Then they hit the corps on wave two, and three got the utilities plant. You heard them?”

In his hesitation Dave can hear him counting backwards, realizing the same thing Dave did as he frantically dialed the numbers that haunted him every day he spent awake. When Karkat speaks, he sounds no better. “Wave number four… it’s always the last. One final strike to flatten the opposition.” His voice drops to a whisper. “They always told us we were winning. Lied to us until the very end, until the bombs shredded their broadcast.”

The sirens that herald the next wave blare. Dave tips his head back, tears running down his cheeks under his aviators. He finally remembered what they meant to him, once upon a time, before the world split up and turned on itself. When he was just a kid who liked to mail things to his best friends. When he first started dreaming of a place called Skaia.

As the sirens fade and the heavy mechanical clunk of thousands of payloads being released in unison overrides everything, he whispers into the phone, “I love you.”

* * *

They stand on a ridge, hands clasped, watching the remnants of their space. The flower forest with the clearing, the flocks of grassbirds and their young, the clouds where they taught some of the young chess how to swim…

It’s all become a wasteland, every speck of organic material whisked away to reveal the bare, hard ground beneath, black and white checks on a glossy smooth surface. Already the neighborhood chess pieces are moving into position, regiments of the higher classes organizing the pawns that Karkat and Dave had played with into battle formations. A white piece with a flower crown on her head watches them as her superior rips it off and tosses it away.

The Mayor clings to the leg of Dave’s pants, trembling, hiding between the two of them to escape the bloody black-and-white warfare that’s sure to follow.

Without speaking, they turn and step down from the ridge, walking away from the freshly made battlefield, forged from their own deaths. They were here forever, now, no longer a traveler between worlds, now that the bodies that had tied them to their home realm were gone. And it was time to find the others.

Above them, the moon pulses lightly in the sky, pulling the sea around it in ever widening rings of tidal patterns that swirl above them, chasing each other with silver light gilding their crests.

**Author's Note:**

> This started as an awake/asleep thing based on "What if clouds and lakes switched spots and every time you looked up you'd see waves being pulled by the moon and we'd wade through the clouds on a hot day. What if birds grew grass and the ground grew feathers. What if flowers were as tall as trees and trees were as small as flowers." and somehow evolved into this unholy creature. It's definitely nothing I've seen before... But I kind of like it?  
> Honestly quite a chunk of the bizarre sort-of future weird faction thing (whatever the hell happened with the "real world" bit) is mostly due to the fact that my boyfriend convinced me to read "Oryx and Crake" and it threw my imagination into a weird place. Good book, though.
> 
> Idk I'm tired. Please let me know what you thought, if you managed to make it through. It's definitely not standard for me.


End file.
